In doing some end-of-year re-calibration, I noticed something odd about fund returns vs personal rate of returns. Take the funds I selected for example, the following chart shows YTD performance.
As an example, here is one fund and its performance
Fund Name 3 Months YTD 1 Year 3 Year 5 Year 10 Year Life
John Hancock Balanced 6.31% 14.99% 23.94% 8.60% 4.10% 9.51% 6.03%
This table shows my personal rate of return by investing in these funds
Fund Name 3 Months (08/01/12- 10/31/12) YTD (01/01/12- 10/31/12) 1 Year
John Hancock Balanced 0.96% 1.03% 1.04%
What gives with such wide variance between fund performance and personal rate of return in my case?
I've seen this same skewed result for 3 other funds - in the end my PROR is negative and all funds are performing near 10% for the year.
Why?
Thanks!

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